Senate votes to tighten Georgia’s sex trafficking laws

2-12-2015 Georgia:

Georgia would force convicted traffickers to register as sex offenders and also require them to pay into a state fund helping victims get back on their feet, among other proposals passed Thursday by the state Senate.

The combination of Senate Bill 8 and Senate Resolution 7 — both sponsored by state Sen. Renee Unterman, R-Buford, a longtime victims’ advocate — would establish a new Safe Harbor for Sexually Exploited Children Fund, which would get money through new $2,500 fines on convicted traffickers and an annual $5,000 fee on adult entertainment establishments.

The money would then pay for physical and mental health care, housing, education, job training, child care, legal help and other services for victims.

It has other components, including a mandate that convicted traffickers be listed on the state sex offender registry — something that doesn’t happen now.

The effort comes as Unterman has formed an alliance with a bipartisan group of House members to pass the legislation. They are working together to merge Unterman’s version of the proposal with a similar House version — House Bill 244 — with hopes to assure final passage. They have also nicknamed the effort as the “Safe Harbor/Rachel’s Act” in honor of a young woman named Rachel who testified earlier this week during a committee hearing.

SB 8, which passed on a 52-3vote, sets out the parameters of the proposal. The companion SR 7 would ask voters statewide for permission to create the new state fund and use it solely to help trafficking victims. Because SR 7 proposes amending the Georgia Constitution, it requires a higher bar to pass the Legislature, including a two-thirds majority in both chambers. It met that bar in the Senate, passing 53-3.

Among those who have spoken on behalf of the effort: Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Vernon Keenan; Frank Mulcahy, the executive director of the Georgia Catholic Conference; and the Georgia Municipal Association. ..Source.. by Kristina Torres

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Lawmakers may require offenders who use prostitutes to attend 'John School’

2-4-2015 North Dakota:

BISMARCK -- Legislators continued their look at new bills to combat sex trafficking in North Dakota on Tuesday, taking up proposals to require school for "johns" and increased penalties for pimps that force abortions.

Anti-trafficking groups are hoping for the adoption of a uniform trafficking law, increased penalties for sellers and buyers of commercial sex and significant resources for victims.

Hearings on the package of bills began last week by the Senate Judiciary committee.

Senate Bill 2332, from state Sen. Mac Schneider, D-Grand Forks, goes after the demand for commercial sex, which many say creates the market for pimps. The bill requires offenders to attend a "John School" and, if the individual reoffends again within 10 years, to register as a sex offender.

Given the enlightenment gained from the educational program, which would be administered on a case-by-case basis in-person or as a webinar, a person who reoffends truly is a sexual predator that should register, said Christina Sambor, the coordinator for the state's anti-sex trafficking coalition FUSE.

The purpose of the John School, proponents say, is to educate men on the negative consequences prostitution has on women -- that it's not the "Pretty Woman" fantasy, but instead women are often being coerced into it.

Sen. Kelly Armstrong, R-Dickinson, had concern about writing into a law a requirement to attend a program that didn't yet exist in the state. But Schneider said he has been in talks with Sambor, who has been in contact with a foundation that does a web-based interactive course for about $300.

North Dakota's education program would be modeled after that of Breaking Free, a St. Paul, Minn.-based organization that supports women leaving prostitution. A survey of men who attended that program showed 61 percent had bought sex before the time they were caught and sentenced to the school. Other statistics have shown they rarely reoffend after the class.

Under the law, judges could make the offender pay for the program.

"If you have the funds to pay for commercial sex, you have the funds to pay for your own education program," Schneider said,

Minot police arrested 13 men in a prostitution sting last Friday in connection with a national enforcement operation targeting johns. Minot Police Lt. Jason Sundbakken said officers made the misdemeanor arrests in about 10 hours on Friday. The men who responded to the ads believed they were arranging to buy sex with women who turned out to be undercover officers.

Sundbakken said while he hadn't been involved in discussions at the legislative level about a proposed John School, he thinks such a program could be effective, similar to how drunk-driving defendants are referred to a victim witness panel.

"At least they would understand the kind of impact they're having on these women," he said.

Another bill, from FUSE and the office of North Dakota’s attorney general, adds "human trafficking or attempted human trafficking" in the definition of disorderly conduct for the purposes of that kind of restraining order. The House Judiciary Committee unanimously passed the bill at its meeting Tuesday.

The idea behind House Bill 1347 is to give parents a clear tool if they worry a pimp is trafficking or trying to traffick their child, Sambor testified.

She noted that under the proposed "Safe Harbor" law, which is also being considered by legislators and is already incorporated into federal law, anyone under 18 that's engaged in commercial sex is presumed to be a victim. The bill also updates the definition of "deprived child" in juvenile court to include victims of trafficking, in case their parents are their traffickers.

In yet another bill, the North Dakota Catholic Conference is pushing a bill that would tack five years onto the maximum prison time for pimps if, during the trafficking, they forced or coerced their victim to get an abortion.

Christopher Dodson, executive director of the conference, cited studies and articles on the prevalence of forced or coerced abortions in trafficking in his support of Senate Bill 2275.

Sen. John Grabinger, D-Jamestown, said the reporting of such a crime might be "kind of a hearsay deal," and brought up concerns over the difficulty of proving it in court.

But Dodson said he knew of three federal cases where this act came to light in the process of a trafficker's prosecution.

The Senate committee unanimously passed a resolution to support a federal law that would make www.Backpage.com more liable when it houses sex ads featuring trafficking victims. North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem spoke in support of Senate Concurrent Resolution 4017 and told the committee how state attorneys general for years have fought with the website, which houses a good share of the Internet's ads for prostitution that often actually feature victims of trafficking. Backpage representatives have maintained the site cooperates with law enforcement and that if it shuts down its escorts page, the ads would simply migrate to more underground websites.

North Dakota law enforcement agencies routinely post sting ads on Backpage when going after johns, Stenehjem said, "because we know that that provides a ready clientele and market for individuals who are interested in finding somebody online to engage in sexual trade."

Sambor told legislators how in a recent trafficking case, a 13-year-old girl in Moorhead, Minn., was advertised by her traffickers as a 21-year-old on the site.

The Senate committee took no action on the other bills.

Polaris releases hotline data

Polaris, a national anti-human trafficking organization, on Tuesday released data of calls during 2014 to the hotline it runs for suspected trafficking.

Polaris received reports of 16 possible cases of human trafficking in North Dakota last year, including 12 sex trafficking cases and three labor trafficking incidents. Since 2007, the hotline has received reports of 36 possible cases of human trafficking in the state.

Overall, 5,167 possible cases of human trafficking were reported to the hotline in 2014, according to Polaris. Most (71 percent) of the calls were to report potential sex trafficking, with labor trafficking making up 16 percent. The organization has reported on the top venues for sex trafficking are commercial-front brothels, Internet ad-based trafficking and motel- or hotel-based operations since 2007. Domestic work, traveling sales crews and the food service industry were the top industries where labor trafficking was reported. ..Source.. by Katherine Lymn

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Michigan House OKs bill to presume teens charged with prostitution are sex trafficking victims

12-5-2013 Michigan:

LANSING, Michigan — The Michigan House has voted to give legal protection to teen prostitutes in an attempt to address human trafficking.

A bill approved unanimously Wednesday would require that when people under age 18 are charged with prostitution, it's presumed that they were coerced into it. They would be subject to temporary protective custody, and police would have to immediately report a suspected human trafficking violation to state social workers.

The legislation is based on a recent recommendation from the state's first human trafficking commission to create a "safe harbor" provision for minors. Bill sponsor Rep. Eileen Kowall, a White Lake Republican, says the state should help victims rebuild their lives instead of arresting them.

The bill and a related one now go to the Senate for consideration. ..Source.. by The Republic

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Group hits states on sex trafficking

12-1-2011 National:

A whopping 40 states and Washington, D.C., received a failing grade for their efforts to stop child sex trafficking, according to a new report released Thursday.

Those states earned a D or F from the non-profit organization Shared Hope International for not having laws on the books adequately protecting children or punishing those responsible for child sex trafficking. To combat their poor grades, the report urged states to adopt more stringent laws targeting sex trafficking.

“States must enact human trafficking laws that are consistent with each other and federal law in scope and penalty so as to prevent migration of trafficking crimes to more lenient states or onto tribal lands,” the report stated.

According to the report, experts say at least 100,000 American children are abused through prostitution each year, and states must work to eliminate demand, prosecute traffickers, identify the victims and offer protection, services and shelter to them

Many victims come from the child welfare system or are runaway and homeless youth, according to another Shared Hope International report. A common factor among many victims is a history of physical or sexual abuse in the home, while other children targeted often have older boyfriends or parents who use drugs.

Texas, Missouri, Illinois and Washington emerged with the highest grade: B. No states received an A, while 15 earned a D and 26 scored an F.

According to the report, four states — West Virginia, Maine, Wyoming and Virginia — do not have human trafficking laws. And 10 states — Colorado, Hawaii, West Virginia, Maine, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Wyoming and Virginia — do not have human trafficking laws that specifically include sex trafficking as a form of the crime on the books.

Samantha Vardaman of Shared Hope International said Thursday that child sex trafficking is “happening here in the United States in large numbers.” To develop the report card grading framework, Vardaman said the organization analyzed each state’s code of laws and then wrote an in-depth report for every state with recommendations.

“There was a range of grades. There were no A’s, and there were many F’s, leaving much room for improvement in the coming year,” she said at a Thursday press conference.

Five states do not have laws making it a crime to purchase or sell sex acts with a minor online, and 19 do not make it a distinct crime to buy sex with a minor, Vardaman said. Four states — Iowa, Massachusetts, South Carolina and Wyoming, along with D.C. — do not make it a crime to go online to buy or sell sex acts with a minor.

Meanwhile, only four states in the nation define abuse and neglect to specifically include sex trafficking — without this, it is difficult for child protective services to intervene, Vardaman said.

The key to reform, Shared Hope International president Linda Smith said, is to unify the legislative framework across the nation for child sex trafficking.

“Each state’s laws show omissions in protective provisions for child victims, and lack strong laws to prosecute the men who rent the bodies of other men’s children,” Smith said in a press release. “Early in our research it was clear that responses to child sex trafficking must originate at the state level.” ..Source.. by MACKENZIE WEINGER

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Georgia Passes Sex Trafficking Law With Heavy Penalties

7-12-2011 Georgia:

Georgia has passed one of the nation's toughest laws on human sex trafficking, giving victims advocates greater hope that other states will follow suit.

The intent of the law is to impose tougher penalties on criminals and provide more treatment options for victims. The new law is the result of a four-year battle that sought to satisfy religious conservatives who argued the changes could in essence legalize prostitution, and children’s advocates who maintain a safety valve was needed for victims forced into the sex trade.

“This is America’s dirty little secret, these are crimes the public doesn’t see, that the public doesn’t want to believe exist; these are hidden victims,” said Ernie Allen of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to The Associated Press.

“Historically, what law enforcement has tended to do is to arrest the kid,” Allen said. “We’re trying to ensure that they focus on the pimp and the customer.”

Senator Renee Unterman (R-Gwinnett) told The Christian Post that she first began working on the legislation more than five years ago.

“The first bill we passed three years ago mandated that anyone who had knowledge of sex trafficking would be required to report it,” said Unterman. “I brought the tougher legislation because Atlanta is a known hub for the sex trade for both boys and girls since Atlanta is a major hub city.”

After educating her legislative colleagues about the real problems of sex trafficking in Georgia, members of both sides of the aisle began to support her efforts.

The bill enforces a 25-year minimum sentence for anyone convicted of using coercion to traffic someone under the age of 18, and imposes a minimum sentence of five years on those who pay for sex with a 16 year old. People trying to have sex with someone even younger face a minimum of 10 years behind bars.

In order to satisfy her colleagues and the conservative groups who opposed and defeated the bill last session, Unterman added stiffer penalties.

“My biggest challenge came from the conservative women’s group who were concerned I was trying to lower the age of consent in Georgia,” said Unterman. “Believe me, that’s the last thing I was trying to do. I don’t think for a second any young person wants to be a prostitute. I believe most are forced into the trade or are trying to survive on the streets. I think this bill will give them a fighting chance.”

Keisha Head knows first-hand the damaging impact sex trafficking can have on a young teenager. She was lured into a life of prostitution at the age of 16 after she ran away from home. Throughout her ordeal, Head was repeatedly raped and abused by her pimp and others.

“I became numb to what I was doing,” Head told AP. “I guess that is the survival instinct to become numb when inflicted with such an ordeal.”

Media outlets, including the Associated Press, do not normally identify victims of sexual assault. However, Head agreed to let her name be used to illustrate the dangers of child prostitution.

“They need to turn up the heat,” she said, “and start convicting the predators or the pimps who are exploiting the children.”

A Future. Not a Past (AFNAP) is a statewide campaign to stop the prostitution of girls in Georgia and is spearheaded by the nonprofit, Juvenile Justice Fund. They are putting up billboards in the Atlanta area to educate the public about the dangers of child prostitution and to scare off potential predators. ..Source.. by Paul Stanley

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Assembly backs clearing the records of certain sex offenders

4-26-2011 Nevada:

The Assembly on Monday gave unanimous approval to a bill that would let victims of sex trafficking clear prostitution convictions from their records.

Assemblyman John Hambrick R-Las Vegas, said Assembly Bill 6 was designed to give those individuals who are the real victims a break by freeing them from having to admit they have a criminal history in situations such as applying for a job.

“It gives them a break, gives them a leg up on starting a new life,” he told the body.

Hambrick said the measure is just one more thing lawmakers can do to address “the scourge of human trafficking.”

AB6 goes to the Senate. ..Source.. by NevadaAppeal.com

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Human trafficking, exploitation is on the rise in Michigan

9-6-2010 Michigan:

Theresa Flores will have knots in her stomach when she comes to Grand Rapids later this week.

“It’s hard to come back to Michigan,” she says from her home in Ohio, where the carpet cleaning company runs its whirring machine and her teen daughter rings in from her cell phone.

Flores was a 15-year-old living in the Detroit suburb of Birmingham when she was held captive in a nightmarish sex slave operation for two years.

She lived in a nice house and went to school every day, where she was a member of the track team.

Almost every night, a black Trans Am picked her up, and she was taken to the basements of houses, where groups of men would rape and torture her while her family slept. They threatened her and her family if she told.

Flores, 45, will be the main speaker Friday at a panel discussion on human trafficking, joined by area experts with a mission to shed light on a dark subject.

“It happens here,” Flores says, “to white, middle-class teens who live in the suburbs. It’s easy to think that because you live in a nice neighborhood, you’re safe. Well, you’re not. We’ve let our guard down.”

What is human trafficking?

Experts say many people aren’t even sure what human trafficking is, often assuming it means smuggling illegal immigrants across borders.

Its real definition: when a person is recruited or transferred through some form of coercion or deception and exploited, mainly for forced labor or sexual exploitation. Women and children are the primary targets, but men also are trafficked.

While much of the illegal trafficking involves bringing women and children across international borders to be sold into sex industries, the number of girls exploited this way is on the rise in Michigan, according to a report released last month by the Michigan Women’s Foundation in partnership with Women’s Funding Network. The May study included the most popular outlets for domestic commercial exploitation: the Internet and escort services. ..For the remainder of this story by Terri Finch Hamilton

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Three Florida Men Plead Guilty to Sex Trafficking Conspiracy

Don't get me wrong here, individually the acts of these men are wrong, but again we see " Casting crime under umbrella terms and phrases!" look at the highlights, what were they called in the past? Are all pimps and brothel madames, sex traffickers? Yes, under the new terminology.

8-26-2010 Florida:

Wifredo A Ferrer, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida; John V Gillies, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Miami Field Office; and Al Lamberti, Sheriff, Broward Sheriff’s Office, announced that defendants Johnny Saintil, 28, Michael Defrand, 25, and Stanley Wilson, 26, of Broward, pled guilty on August 23, 2010 to conspiring to sex traffic minors and sex trafficking by force, threats of force, and coercion, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1594(c). Defrand also pled guilty to a substantive count of sex trafficking of a minor, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1591(a). Sentencing for all three men has been scheduled for November 19, 2010 before United States District Judge William J Zloch. Each of the defendants faces a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

According to court documents and statements made in court, Saintil, Defrand, and Wilson were members of an organization that called itself “Please Talk Paper.” From September 2009 through March 16, 2010, the organization was used to prostitute adult and minor females out of national and international hotel chains in Broward County. The organization would advertise its prostitution services on the Internet. The defendants used the organization to do Internet advertising, facilitate transportation, and avoid law enforcement detection. In this way, the defendants shared resources, including hotel rooms, computers, condoms, and the prostitutes working for the organization.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov. Mr Ferrer commended the investigative efforts of the Broward Sheriff’s Office and the FBI’s Minor Vice Task Force. ..Source. 7thSpace

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Attorneys general call for Craigslist to get rid of adult services ads

Casting crime under umbrella terms and phrases! Trafficking, the new buzz word to encompass every kind of sex act known to man. Notice the highlighted words in this article, and ask, how is that "Trafficking" some will be, but not all. And, notice who is mentioned as championing the anti-trafficking campaign: NCMEC. Trafficking, their new buzz-word; sex offender, apparently is losing its bite.

8-26-2010 National:

(CNN) -- Attorneys general in 17 states have banded together to call on Craigslist, the online classified ad website, to discontinue its adult services section.

"The increasingly sharp public criticism of Craigslist's Adult Services section reflects a growing recognition that ads for prostitution -- including ads trafficking children -- are rampant on it," the attorneys general said in a Tuesday letter to Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster and founder Craig Newmark.

The letter continued: "We recognize that Craigslist may lose the considerable revenue generated by the Adult Services ads. No amount of money, however, can justify the scourge of illegal prostitution, and the suffering of the women and children who will continue to be victimized, in the market and trafficking provided by Craigslist."

A Craigslist spokeswoman said Wednesday that the site agreed with at least some of the letter.

"We strongly support the attorneys general desire to end trafficking in children and women, through the Internet or by any other means," Susan MacTavish Best, who handles media inquiries for Craigslist, told CNN Wednesday.

"We hope to work closely with them, as we are with experts at nonprofits and in law enforcement, to prevent misuse of our site in facilitation of trafficking, and to combat such crimes wherever they appear, online or offline."

In their letter, the attorneys general highlighted an open letter, which appeared as a Washington Post ad, in which two girls said they were sold for sex on Craigslist.

When the ad came out, Buckmaster wrote a blog post in response that said, "Craigslist is anxious to know that the perpetrators in these girls' cases are behind bars."

The letter also highlighted a report in May by CNN's Amber Lyon, who posted a fake ad in the adult section. She received 15 calls soliciting sex in three hours.

Earlier this month, Lyon interviewed a woman named "Jessica" who sells sex on Craigslist. She told Lyon a Craigslist ad was "the fastest, quickest way you're for sure going to see somebody that day."

In a later blog, Buckmaster said Craigslist implemented manual screening of adult services ads in May 2009. "Since that time, before being posted each individual ad is reviewed by an attorney." He said the attorneys are trained to enforce Craigslist's posting guidelines, "which are stricter than those typically used by yellow pages, newspapers, or any other company that we are aware of."

Attorneys general from Arkansas, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia made the request a week after accused "Craigslist killer" Philip Markoff committed suicide in jail.

Markoff was charged with the April 2009 killing of Julissa Brisman. Boston Police said that Brisman, a model, advertised as a masseuse on Craigslist, and Markoff might have met her through the website.

In 2008, under pressure from state prosecutors, the website raised the fees for posting adult services ads. In 2009, it started donating portions of the money generated by adult ads to charity.

A CNN investigation of Craigslist's "adult services" section, which replaced "erotic services ads" two years ago, counted more than 7,000 ads in a single day. Many offered thinly veiled "services" for anything from $50 for a half hour to $400 an hour.

Newmark has defended his site, saying it is doing more than any other site that hosts adult ads to help filter out underage prostitutes and report them to police. Best, the Craigslist spokeswoman, said that fewer than one ad in 10,000 meets the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's guidelines for anti-trafficking action.

"Only Craigslist has the power to stop these ads before they are even published, and sadly they are completely unwilling to do so," Kansas Attorney General Steve Six said in a statement. ..Source.. CNN Wire Staff

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IL- Domestic Sex Trafficking of Chicago Women and Girls

5-13-2008 Illinois:

While international sex trafficking has made headlines, domestic sex trafficking remains a problem. In a study undertaken in Chicago, 100 women were interviewed and asked about their entrance into the sex industry and their current experiences in the trade.

The study asks questions such as the age when the woman or girl began, who it was that introduced her to the industry, relationship to the pimp, and the violence the woman experiences. The data showed that the longer a person remains in the sex trade, the greater the downward spiral in experience of violence, number of clients per day, and distance traveled.

..To read the full report.. by Jody Raphael and Jessica Ashley

See Also: Deconstructing The Demand for Prostitution: Preliminary Insights From Interviews With Chicago Men Who Purchase Sex by Rachel Durchslag and Samir Goswami

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